I’ve gotten the impression that one needs to be wary when buying a laptop battery on-line.
General comments or recommendations would be great. I’m looking for a six-cell HP Mini 110 battery. They go for $100 from HP but are available for less than half that at various sites.
Here’s a specific question…
One partciular new battery has the following in its ad:
Features
1 year replacement warranty
Each Superb Choice battery was tested at an original laptop.
High capacity battery certified by CE and RoHS, This battery was tested and proven to match and/or exceed original specifications of HP Mini products
Li-Ion battery,10.8V,4400mAh,6 cells
Products trademarked Superb Choice are registered and marketed by Superb Choice.
For it to be tested, wouldn’t it need to be charged? Doesn’t a battery need to be fully charged the first time? If so it seems like this could be an issue.
When they say the battery was tested to meet OEM spec, they mean the design of this particular battery was tested to meet those specs, not the particular one you are purchasing. That’s fine with me. Give me one that meets the specs and has the fewest charges on it to start with. You are protected with the warranty. Buy from reputable sources and you are good to go.
I’ve had success with going with highly rated ebay sellers. Type in what you need and then only do “buy it now” and “price + shipping lowest first” and go from there.
Also maybe try a store called batteries plus. Pretty sure they are national. take the old battery in and they will go through so many makes models ups and downs of each battery.
Just be sure to pay with a credit card in case they get any ideas about weaseling out from under the warranty later on. And make sure they aren’t jerks about the warranty either. AutoZone (I know, they don’t sell laptop batteries) will force to leave a bad car battery with them overnight so they can test the battery and prove its dead. Sure, they’ll be happy to give you a loaner. But they won’t help you remove and replace the loaner battery, doubling the labor needed to do a battery exchange.
This on its face makes their warranty worthless. An online seller might want you to jump through unreasonable hoops and hurdles for a warranty exchange. Or they might just do a straight up no questions asked exchange. Some food for thought. Not all warranties are the same.